Getting the Most from your Audience Interviews

As I mentioned in my last post, I like to use audience interviews to validate product messaging. The open atmosphere and flexibility of an interview allows you to obtain much more than a simple validation. It helps you create stronger products and more effective messages.

The following tips will help product marketers get the most out of their audience interviews.

1. Don’t do the audience interview yourself. Product marketers are so familiar with their product and its messaging that it is very difficult to divorce themselves from the messaging. In an audience interview, they tend to translate what they hear into to very messaging with which they are familiar. This makes it very difficult for a product marketer to realize the full benefit from the audience interviews.
2. Prepare the specific questions for the interview beforehand. Treat each interviewee as an individual. Document the questions you want to ask that individual beforehand. Organize the questions to help create a logical flow. Document them in the order the interviewer should ask them. Include both base questions and follow-up questions. Highlight the questions you want to make sure are answered in the interview. The interviewer can use this document to take notes during the interview.
   
3. Respect the interviewee’s time. Start the interview by asking the interviewee how much time they have for the interview. Don’t assume that he/she has set aside the time you requested. As interviews often start late, it should be easy to clarify with the interviewee how much time is available for the interview. Once the interviewer has firmly established the end time, it is important that they honor that time. If there are still outstanding questions, the interviewer can ask to set up a follow-up call to complete the interview.
   
4. Start by understanding the context of the individual being interviewed. Many interviewers assume knowledge about the interviewee based on their title and other existing knowledge. It is better to begin with a clean slate. Start the interview by asking questions that delve into the interviewee’s role and responsibilities. You may also want to ask questions about the interviewee’s familiarity with the company and product. In this way, you create a context for understanding the rest of the interviewee’s responses to your questions.
   
5. Ask interesting, challenging, open-ended questions. Often, product messaging validation questions tend to be structured as if they were a survey. Respondents can easily answer yes or no to the question. Interesting, open-ended questions invite the interviewee to talk as much as they want about a topic. Challenging questions intrigue and engage the interviewee. It is in the discourse these types of questions create that you glean so much more about the respondent’s needs, wants, and attitudes.
   
6. Follow the interviewee through doors they open. Often, interviewees may give unexpected responses to the open ended questions you ask. Use simple questions based on why, what, how to explore their responses further. This additional information helps the product marketer know what to do with these surprising responses.
   
7. Capture the responses verbatim. Document the interviewee’s responses as accurately as possible. Record the interview if possible. If not, then take extensive notes which capture the words and phrases the interviewee uses. Language use is crucial to the effectiveness of messaging, so seeing patterns in language use from interviewee to interviewee can only be accomplished with detailed, accurate notes.
   

Use these tips to capture the information that not only validates but helps you improve your product messaging.